New to Python, familiar with Perl - Seeking info sources

[cokofreedom at gmail.com]

On Jul 24, 3:53 pm, Brett Ritter <swift... at swiftone.org> wrote:
> After many years happily coding Perl, I'm looking to expand my
> horizons. [no flames please, I'm pretty aware of Perl's strengths and
> weaknesses and I'm just here to learn more, not to enter religious
> debates].
>
> I've gone through some of the online tutorials and I'll be browsing
> the reference before starting the "code a lot" phase.
>
> My question is: What are the best sources to learn best practices or
> get the answers to questions?  Are there any good sources to tell me
> what Perl habits are good/bad in the Python paradigm?  What about
> common packages that will change my life?  (I do a lot of web work,
> but also a lot of DB reporting)  I'm also working as a Java developer
> primarily, so I'm glad to see that Jython has been resurrected, but
> I'm focusing on vanilla Python for the moment.
>
> As examples: PerlMonks has been my info source.  The Perl Best
> Practices and Higher Order Perl books have been my tutors into better
> coding practices.  CPAN has my life easy, giving me access to the DBI,
> Class::DBI (and its successors), HTML::FillInForm,
> Data::FormValidator, CGI::Application, and Text::CSV::Simple modules
> that are staples of my coding.   The (occasionally complete) Perl
> Advent calendars have proven to be a good source to learn about
> helpful modules that I might not otherwise stumble across.
>
> (I've encountered Django, but I'm getting my fill of "frameworks" from
> Java for the moment, so I'm looking for lightweight pieces at the
> moment)
>
> My (admittedly brief) searches here and on google didn't lead me to
> any particular spots of concentrated Python info, and most of the Perl/
> Python stuff is either a smug attack by one camp on the other or a
> rant about the behavior of an obscure feature between the two.
>
> Any recommendations?  Thanks in advance.

Best start is a quick read of DiveIntoPython that provides a nice
account of how to work with Python, and relates to coming from a
programming background. I also keep this List on my bookmarks, as well
as the python library (http://docs.python.org//lib/).

The ActiveState Python Cookbook (http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/
Python/Cookbook/) generally has a lot of useful code snippets worth
using.

Zen of Python (http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/) shows the
idea of Python and (http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/) is the
Style Guidelines for Python code.

I haven't worked with the web and Python much yet so maybe someone
else can help you there. Welcome :)